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Seven complex lessons in education for the future

Just a quick post to share something I’ve been thinking about lately. Some of my colleagues will know how much I like a book from French sociologist Edgar Morin: Seven complex lessons in education for the future (2002). As the years go by this is probably the one book I would suggest reading to all teachers, but also students and generally to those involved in education.

In his book, Morin describes seven basic principles for future education, which are fundamental yet too often ignored. These seven principles highlight the importance to educate future generations to understanding the human condition, how knowledge is formed and what are the possible errors in this process, the importance of understanding each others and confronting and accepting uncertainty and complexity.

These subjects are not only very contemporary, but also particularly important in healthcare education, where students need to raise their eyes from the micro-cosmos of the basic sciences to the macro-cosmos of social health issues, understanding how the two are interwoven and continuously inter-influenced.

As this week I was thinking about how “Human Sciences” subjects are being assessed in medicine, I had of course think of how they were taught. It would be nice to see if Open Data could be used to teach students about the “human condition” and general World Health issues. Something is starting to move in this direction. How could open data be used in Medical Sociology teaching, for example?

I would be particularly interested to see whether using open data as OERs, to facilitate students’ critical understanding of socio-cultural elements influencing , for example, health issues could nurture compassion.

However, all this to say that I really recommend reading this book, which will probably make you want read another gem: “On Complexity“, which is about… the complexity of human being. I won’t say more, for now :)